A letter to first year me: Nancy

Posted on: 3 June 2025 by Richard Finch in Student experiences

Nancy is a Class of 2025 International Relations graduate. She looks back at her time at the University of Liverpool and thinks about what she would tell her first-year self.

Dear First Year Me,

You’ve finished first year! Well done! You might have had a few shockers here and there but there’s nothing more exciting than being kept on your toes… regardless, it’s all ended up fine! Let’s recap how you got here.

In September 2022 you walked into Melville and found out that you really lucked out housemate wise. You spent the year watching TV, learning card games and constantly being asked for fun facts about yourself. Unfortunately, you were slightly less than sold on your course and seriously considered whether you wanted to continue with it. Luckily though, you got distracted trying judo and taking Spanish lessons, so you didn’t bother doing anything about it. You’d thank yourself for this later.

Then, second year rolls around. The immediate fruit fly infestation in your house isn’t the perfect start to the year but it only goes up from there! You start your new job, meet some fantastic friends, and, in a university-defining decision, you start rowing. This ends up being a pretty big deal for you. I know you won’t expect it; you’ve never stuck with a sport in your life, but being part of a team quickly becomes quite addictive. You learn the lingo, merge with the seniors and meet people who you quickly can’t imagine living without. Meanwhile for the first time in your life the academics take a back step, and you feel lighter for it. You enjoy the course more now that you can choose your modules and for the first time you feel like you’ve got a decent work-life balance.

Finally, it’s time for third year! I won’t lie to you, working full time for the civil service all summer and coming back into studying without a break isn’t your best idea. It’s a year of peaks and troughs, luckily the peaks are still greater than the troughs. The academics are hard this year, there’s just so much to do. You do a lot of reminding yourself that actually the sky will not fall down if you don’t do as well as you hope (at some points you’re better at remembering this than at others). Regardless, you end up in the sun, on your lunch break from a big library day playing ultimate frisbee and looking like you’re posing for the photo on the front of the university prospectus, and the stress is gone.

Now you’re looking towards the future, you’re not sure what will happen, but it’ll probably be fine, it normally is.

Nancy